


A Little Less Conversation

by Jain



Category: Good Wife (TV)
Genre: Character of Color, Community: femslash11, F/F, First Time, POV Third Person, Past Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-17
Updated: 2011-08-17
Packaged: 2017-10-22 17:22:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jain/pseuds/Jain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alicia and Kalinda are careful with each other nowadays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Less Conversation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mammothluv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mammothluv/gifts).



There was a man lying full-length on the sofa in Alicia's office, but her door was open and she seemed to be ignoring him, so Kalinda didn't hesitate to lean in and drop a file on her desk. "The info you wanted for the Rutledge case."

"Thanks, Kalinda," Alicia said, giving her the slightly stiff smile that was the best Kalinda could expect from her these days.

"Ka _lin_ da," the man said, an undercurrent of laughter in his voice. "So, are you the one who gets the toaster, or am I? I haven't quite figured that out."

"Owen!" Alicia said. "Get out, now, and don't...talk to my friends. Or my bosses. Or anyone who knows me."

Owen grinned at her. "Going," he singsonged. He got up from his sprawl on the couch, leaned over to give Alicia a quick kiss on the mouth, and left with a last cheery wave and wink at Kalinda.

Kalinda raised an eyebrow at Alicia.

"Brother," Alicia said. "Annoying baby brother."

"Ah," Kalinda said and gave her a carefully polite smile in response. She lingered a moment in the doorway in the hopes that Alicia might expound on the other items of interest in that brief conversation--the toaster comment and the part where Alicia had called her her friend, present tense--but Alicia just shrugged and smiled and kept her mouth shut. She'd always been great at circumspection, which was occasionally annoying but far more often useful and admirable.

"Call me if you need anything else," Kalinda said with a nod at the file on Alicia's desk and left.

* * *

When Alicia won the Rutledge case, Kalinda gave her a quick "Good job" that could be as heartfelt or as meaningless as Alicia wanted it to be; their relationship was grounded in ambiguities lately.

"You, too," Alicia said, which was a little unexpected, and, "Hey, do you want to grab a celebratory drink after this?" which was practically inconceivable.

"Yeah, okay," Kalinda said after the barest pause.

"Come find me in my office in an hour or so. We can go to the bar together."

"All right."

Kalinda's part in the Rutledge case was done--had _been_ done since she'd given that file to Alicia. She'd only come to the courtroom out of a completely inappropriate sense of solidarity that she could pass off as professional interest if needed. But that didn't mean that there wasn't other work to be done. She headed back to Lockhart/Gardner and whipped out a series of emails to various people who'd been helpful to her over the years: "how are you," "how are the wife/husband and kids" emails that were complete bullshit and also completely necessary if she didn't want her sources to dry up. Signing out of her email client and going to meet Alicia felt almost a relief in comparison.

That sense of relief lasted as long as catching the elevator with Alicia, at which point their stunning inability to make small talk edged them past discomfort and into actual pain. When they hit street level and Alicia nodded at the hotel across the street, Kalinda said, "Sure," despite the fact that the hotel bar's drinks were overpriced and its atmosphere nonexistent. At that point, _close_ was the most important factor in deciding where to go.

The second most important factor was alcohol, which, considering that they were heading to a bar, was less of a factor than a common denominator, and if Kalinda was being that geeky then she really was rattled by this situation. Three shots in five minutes was enough to raise the bartender's eyebrows, but it also made the evening bearable. They chatted--a meaningless conversation about work and the weather and politics; apparently small talk _was_ possible between them with the steady application of alcohol--and Kalinda would have been bored out of her skull if she were with anyone else, but she was talking to Alicia, so she couldn't be anything but grateful.

* * *

"Drinks tonight?" Alicia asked.

They'd gone out four times since the Rutledge case, once without even the excuse of a victory in court, so Kalinda smiled easily and said, "Sounds good." They were still more than a little broken, but this at least was something they could have.

"My place okay?" Alicia said, and then added, "We'll have the place to ourselves."

"Are you sure?" Kalinda asked, not certain if she were asking if everyone else would definitely be out, or if Alicia really wanted to invite her into her home.

But Alicia said, "Yes," very firmly, her eyes unflinching when she looked at Kalinda.

"In that case, I'd love to."

Alicia smiled. "I need to go ahead and make sure the kids didn't trash the place when they left this afternoon. Do you want to drop by around eight?"

"Eight sounds good," Kalinda said and headed into Diane's office with a strange sense of fuzzy weightlessness, as though her body were trying to mimic the unreality of her life.

She bought lemon bars on the way to Alicia's. Flowers would feel ridiculous--she wouldn't blame Alicia for throwing them back in her face--but she had to bring _something_ to recognize this show of hospitality. Besides, Alicia loved lemon bars.

The apartment was bright and clean and quiet when Alicia let her in. Kalinda would have pegged her as an instrumental jazz fan, but the music playing low in the living room had a husky-voiced woman vocalist; Kalinda couldn't place the singer.

They settled at the kitchen counter with glasses of red wine and lemon bars, with the promise of a bottle of tequila sitting at Alicia's elbow.

"Before either of us gets too drunk for this, I wanted to tell you something," Alicia said, toying with her wineglass. The fingers of her left hand were dusted lightly with powdered sugar; it paired incongruously with her shiny hair and perfect makeup and little (but not _too_ little) black dress.

"Okay," Kalinda said cautiously.

"If it's not completely out of the question at this point, I think I'd like to go to bed with you."

Kalinda stilled. Her fight-or-flight mechanism was excellent, and leaned heavily towards the "fight" half of the equation, but part of being an effective fighter was being able to pause for a crucial moment to assess the situation. "I've sort of given up sleeping with people's spouses lately."

Alicia laughed; it sounded more than a little bitter. "That's ironic. I recently decided to embrace adultery myself."

"You what?"

Alicia shook her head. "I shouldn't have said that. What I meant was: Peter and I are separated; he's living in his own apartment. I don't know if we're getting a divorce, but I don't feel any...personal commitment towards him, and he knows it. And I still don't forgive you for sleeping with my husband, but I'm tired of hating you. I'm tired of a lot of things."

"Among them heterosexuality," Kalinda said, her voice coming out flat. She winced inwardly.

"Yes," Alicia said, sounding almost surprised by her own agreement. She sighed and rubbed her forehead with her right hand, a tic that Kalinda recognized from long hours spent on cases, when Alicia was tired and frustrated and second-guessing herself. "We haven't really been...friendly for a while, and that's because of me."

Kalinda noted that Alicia's words carefully disclaimed responsibility; she knew very well which of them Alicia blamed for their recent distance.

"You probably weren't interested even before, and I doubt that anything that's happened in the past few months has _increased_ your interest. But I'm trying to make our relationship work--any kind of relationship: friendship or more or, well, anything--and I figure honesty's a good place to start, so this is me laying my cards on the table. If you're not interested, feel free to tell me to shove it."

Kalinda let out a sharp bark of laughter, then shook her head quickly before her reaction could be misinterpreted. "Sorry, it's just...you. The perfect politician's wife and the soccer mom. I still get surprised sometimes when you say or do things that don't match your image."

"I could say the same about you," Alicia said. "...minus the part about the politician's wife and the soccer mom."

"Yeah," Kalinda said lightly. "I guess you could." Maybe someday they could talk about Peter and about Kalinda's choices, but not yet. "You should know that I don't do relationships well."

"You know, I'm beginning to suspect that neither do I," Alicia said, self-deprecating yet _amused_ , as though she'd spent so much time crying over it that she'd had nowhere to go in the end but towards laughter, and so Kalinda kissed her. It might be a mistake, but Kalinda had become something of an expert at making mistakes with Alicia, and somehow their friendship hadn't been killed yet, so _fuck_ being careful; Kalinda was going to try for happiness instead.


End file.
